


extra

by OpheliaMarina



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5407238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpheliaMarina/pseuds/OpheliaMarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Max ever sees Chloe, she wants to take a picture of her immediately, but can’t, because that would be so, so weird. </p><p>(Consumerism-inspired AU for Haaku.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	extra

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> The name is Extra for three reasons- 1) it is based on the Extra gum commercial, which was 2) excessively extra, which is meta, but 3) not as extra as me writing a long ass fic about it.
> 
> This is completely unbeta'd and unedited, because it is a gift, an early gift to my dear friend Haaku, based on a gum commercial. Merry Christmas, Haaku!

The first time Max ever sees Chloe, she wants to take a picture of her immediately, but can’t, because that would be so, so weird. 

It’s not like she’s being voyeuristic or anything. She’s just standing on the school steps waiting for the bus, bookbag tapping against her waist. Kate and Dana are talking about Kate’s rabbit in front of her, and when Dana says something about rabbits not being immune to pinkeye because they have pink eyes, Max rolls her eyes and there Chloe is. Out of peripheral vision and suddenly center stage.

She’s looking at Max, but it doesn’t seem like she’s been staring- their eyes meet the way eyes sometimes do, getting caught and then trapped in place by each other. 

Max doesn’t know her name, but she does know then that she’s pretty. It’s, honestly, shocking and offensive that Max has never seen her before- bright blue hair and a sharp kind of look in her eyes that goes softer and surprised when their gazes meet. She’s with another girl and two guys Max knows vaguely from the skatepark, and she’s wearing a beanie and a red flannel that clashes terrifyingly against her hair, and there’s something about the way she doesn’t blink as she and Max just look at each other that makes Max think she’s beautiful.

Her fingers are tapping against the side of her camera when Dana says, “Max?” and her gaze snaps front and forward. “Uh? What?”

Both Dana and Kate are looking at her, their conversation apparently over, Kate looking expectant and Dana amused. Carefully not looking in the girl’s direction, Dana jerks her head sideways to indicate her. “Who’s the girl, Max?”

“What?” Max says, and against her better judgment sneaks another side glance. The girl with the blue hair is still looking at her, and she quickly looks away again. “Um. What? I don’t know her.”

“Uh huh,” Dana says, a cat’s smile curling up her cheeks in that self-satisfied way. “Sure.”

Kate’s frowning in the girl’s direction now, and Max hisses, “Stop looking at her,” ducking her head behind her hand. She kind of wants to look again, but twice is probably too many times to make prolonged eye contact with a stranger. Once is probably too many times. 

“She’s still looking at you,” Dana notes, and when Max swipes at her she just dodges. “Relax, I’m a master of my craft. She doesn’t know I’m even looking, she is still wrapped up in you, babe- ah, there we go. She looked away.” Even though Max is still staunchly refusing to look up, she sees Dana put her hands on her hips. “Maxine Caulfield, is there something you feel like sharing with the group?”

If the girl’s really no longer looking, Max can look up again, and she does, after a second of hesitation. Peeking sideways, the girl has indeed gone back to chatting with the others. She has a nice profile, a nice nose. A portrait kind of face. “I don’t know her,” she says absently, and when Dana scoffs, she glares back up at her. “I really don’t, I swear!”

“I think I do,” Kate says suddenly, and both girls look at her. Looking uncertainly at Max, she goes on, “Her name’s… I can’t remember. But she’s in my math class.” There must be something in Max’s face that prompts her for more, because she gives a little shrug. “She’s nice.”

The buses come, and the blue-haired girl gets on the one in front of Max’s, still talking animatedly with the blonde girl with her as she climbs up the steps. 

She might look back at Max before she disappears behind the paned glass, but she also was maybe just moving her head like a normal person and Max is a weird obsessive neurotic. 

Max’s fingers rest on the side of her camera for the entire bus ride home anyway. 

\---

A week later, Max learns her name by accident. 

Here’s the thing. Max isn’t a ditz, and she isn’t a calculated seducer of women either. She’s just straight up clumsy. She didn’t even know the girl was there when she drops nearly all of her stuff trying to get two books out of her locker.

The camera goes tumbling too, though, and that’s what sends her heart into her throat. She drops the rest of what she’s holding to go grabbing for it, but it’s already out of her reach, and it’s going to shatter into at least three old, dusty, irreplaceable pieces, maybe more-

A hand comes out of nowhere and snatches it in midair, right before it hits the floor. There’s no sound of a crash, just a quick exhale, and Max leans against the lockers, sinking down onto her knees in relief and reaching for it with one hand. “Thank-”

When she looks up, it’s the girl from the other day. She’s kneeling down, and she’s holding Max’s camera with one chipped-blue-nail hand, and she’s just looking at her. Not even blinking. 

Max’s hand is already touching hers, closed over the camera.

“Thank you,” she says, a little shakily, and the girl smiles and lets go. She then goes scooping for Max’s other books and notes as both of Max’s hands come clutching at the camera in relief, and hurriedly Max says, “Oh no, it’s okay-”

But by then, the girl’s already got them all gathered under one arm, and she holds them out to Max, one eyebrow cocked, nearly like a challenge but still a lot like kindness.

She’s not wearing a hat today, and her roots are lavender. Max swallows, and wonders why she hasn’t said anything yet.

Skin still buzzing with adrenaline from watching the camera fall, on impulse she reaches up with her camera, angles it before the girl’s other eyebrow can rise, and snaps a photo. Just the girl, raised eyebrow and raised corner of the mouth, holding Max’s books under the arms. 

The girl blinks twice, and it’s as Max is shyly taking her books out from under her arm that she speaks for the first time. “What was that?”

“Um,” Max says, and now she can’t look at the girl anymore, bravery lost in the flash of the lens. Still, she slides the photo into one of her binders, all the same. “I just- I just try to take a picture a day, you know? Of something good that happened to me.” Carefully, she looks up to meet the girl’s eyes- she’s just staring at Max, just like before. “Something like you saving my camera.”

When she rises back onto her feet, clutching her books and camera more securely to her chest this time, the girl comes up too, eyes never leaving her face. There’s a moment of silence where they’re just looking at each other.

“My name’s Chloe,” the girl says finally.

Max smiles, a little tentatively. “I’m Max,” she says.

The bell rings, and there’s a flurry of movement around them. Someone jostles Max, slightly upsetting her camera again, and that’s what wakes her back up. “Um-”

“I’ll see you around, Max,” says Chloe, and smiles at her, a real genuine smile. It’s enough to make Max wish she hadn’t wasted her photo of the day on just the raised eyebrow.

She waits for Max to say a dazed, “yeah,” before winking at her and sauntering away, backwards at first, back towards the blonde girl Max had seen her with the other day, who’s watching the two of them with naked amusement. It’s only when she finally turns back around that Max has to blink, snap herself out of it, and hurry to class.

Half an hour later, Dana texts her with an extremely excessive amount of emojis.

 **Dana <3 <3 <3**: RACHEL AMBER just asked me for ur #???? for a FRIEND??? wtf max

\---

Three weeks later, and the movie they go see is horrible.

“That movie was literally the worst movie I’ve ever seen,” Chloe says. 

They’re in Chloe’s truck, which Max has decided she loves even though it’s shitty. There’s paint and the smell of smoke and gasoline everywhere, and the leather is cracked but it’s worn in, comfortable, and even though the car isn’t in the best shape it’s holding up. It’s got a lot of character that way.

It’s dark outside. They’re parked outside Max’s house. There are so many stars in the sky, and the moon is full.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Max muses. Her fingers are curling up. She has the movie tickets, twelve dollars, and her camera in the bag at her feet. This is probably the part of the night where they’re supposed to kiss, but she doesn’t know if she’s supposed to lean in or if Chloe should, since she drove. “I liked the part where the Golden Gate Bridge blew up.”

Chloe looks at her in surprise, then giggles a little. “You did?” Max nods, and she laughs out loud, leaning back against the seat. “God, wasn’t that so fucking cliché though?”

“Sure,” Max says, and she leans down a little, draws her bag up with her foot and starts rooting through it. “That’s not a bad thing.”

Chloe hums pensively, looking thoughtful. There’s a streetlamp near her side of the car, and it’s lighting her angelic through the window. “I mean. I guess not, huh? And the lead actress was kind of hot. I liked the part where she- what are even you doing?”

Finally Max pulls her camera free of the bag, angles it up in Chloe’s direction, and takes in everything- the full moon over Chloe’s shoulder, the gold light of the street light turning her hair into an ethereal halo, her surprised expression, the snow that’s just starting to fall. 

The flash snaps. The photo comes out well.

Chloe blinks at the light, then blinks again, just at Max. “Was that-”

“Today’s something good,” Max confirms, sliding the camera and the photo back into her bag. Then she puts her hands back in her lap, and looks back at Chloe again. “I had a really nice time tonight, Chloe.”

Chloe’s looking at her. There’s one certain way Chloe looks at her, Max thinks, that is always going to remind her of the first time she ever saw Chloe look at her. 

That’s not a bad thing.

If she’s the one who leans in first, or if it’s Chloe, it ends up not mattering so much, because they meet halfway.

As far as first kisses go, this is probably the best one conceivable. There’s no teeth clacking or nose bumping. Just Chloe, her breath warm against Max’s face and eyelashes fluttering closed and lips soft and gentle against Max’s, like she’s taking care. 

It’s Max who pulls away first, and as soon as she opens her eyes Chloe’s already looking at her, eyes big and bright. Then she laughs.

Then they’re both laughing, awkward and happy and young in the yellow light, and Max is shouldering her bag up over the arm of her dress. Still giggling, she looks at Chloe again, one hand on the door handle. “Good night?”

“Good night,” Chloe says, laughter fading off, and she watches Max climb out of the car, watches her go around the hood to reach the steps of her house. When Max looks back, Chloe moves up closer to the window, breathes against it, and traces a slightly crooked heart into the fog left behind. 

Corny, for sure, but the fact that Max sleeps with that picture of Chloe in the light of the streetlamp, looking stunned and soft in the seconds before they kissed, is probably way worse.

\---

The snow stops falling dreamily after a while, but it doesn’t stop falling, and eventually it becomes a monstrosity. 

Max has been pegged in the head by three snowballs in a row when she decides that the long-range plan of attack isn’t working out. Chloe’s probably cheating anyhow; this is her backyard, after all, and Max isn’t as familiar with the terrain- every time she looks up, Chloe’s darting to a new location, and Max has been stuck behind a particularly large snowbank for the last ten minutes.

She’s going to have to get devious about it.

Hurriedly, she packs just a little bit of snow into her left mitten, then sticks her head up. “Wait! I surre-” She just manages to duck as a fourth snowball goes speeding for her head, then pops back up, scowling. “Hey! I was saying I surrender!”

Chloe lowers her already packed and loaded snowball, a few feet away from Max across the yard now. Amused, she calls out, “A surrender? I don’t know if that’s allowed.”

“Well, let it be allowed,” Max says, hopping over the snowbank, carefully keeping her left hand behind her back while trying to make it look like she’s not keeping her left hand behind her back on purpose. “I don’t think my hat can take much more of this.”

When she reaches Chloe, Chloe drops the rest of the snow to readjust the gray wool back over the crown of Max’s head. Chloe herself has gone without one, for some reason, and the tips of her ears are turning red. “Fair enough. ‘S a cute hat.” Before Max can say thanks, she goes on, “So what’s the condition on a forfeit? What’s my reward then?”

Her gloved fingers have left Max’s hat, are tracing a path down past the ridge of her ear. Max shivers, pretends like it’s from the cold, squeezes the snow a little tighter in her hand. “I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t really think of the reward. What do you think?”

“I have a couple of ideas,” Chloe breathes, and if she leans down just an inch lower then Max will have the perfect vantage point.

She does, even having the balls to close her eyes, so when Max reaches up and crushes the snow into her already-damp blue locks, she doesn’t even have the reflex to pull away immediately.

Her eyes do fly open, though, and she sputters and straightens up without taking her right hand off Max’s waist. Max is giggling, childishly, and Chloe shakes her head like a dog once, twice, spraying water everywhere, before turning shocked wide eyes on Max again. “You-”

It’s probably just the shocked look that sends Max into hysterics, laughing with her whole chest and close to doubling over if Chloe wasn’t sort-of holding her up. 

“You fucking cheater!” Chloe finally manages, appalled, and pulls Max back up to look at her. Max just giggles some more looking at Chloe’s face, all pink-cheeked and surprised with patches of white snow pressed into her hair. “Oh, you’re gonna get it, Max-”

And Max fully expects another snowball to the face, is ready for it, even, but Chloe just swoops down and kisses her with a vengeance, which she absolutely isn’t ready for. 

The warmth of Chloe’s mouth is shocking and a little disconcerting against the snow still biting at their cheeks, and it’s hard to find purchase on Chloe’s waist and neck with mittens on, but Chloe doesn’t seem to care, just keeps kissing her like it isn’t freezing and winter garb isn’t awkward and there isn’t anything else she could possibly imagine doing that’s better than this.

She’s bitten Max’s lower lip and Max’s mouth has fallen open in a gasp when a voice, muffled by Max’s readjusted hat, calls, “Girls?”

Chloe groans but pulls back, and Max is going to step back from her embrace but Chloe’s gloves just tighten around her. “What, Mom?”

Joyce, Chloe’s goodnatured mother, has opened the window to call out to them, and she’s looking an appropriate mix of stern and amused to seem perfectly matronly. “I was just going to say, if you girls feel like controlling your hormones for a little while, I’ve made some hot chocolate. Max, honey, you can put your wet things in with Chloe’s when you come in.”

“Thanks, Joyce!” Max calls as Chloe grumbles, and when the window swings shut, she reaches down to tug Chloe’s hand. “You wanna head inside, then? I’m really feeling hot chocolate right now.”

But when she meets Chloe’s eyes, there’s a heavy sort of look there, something dark and deep she hasn’t seen there before. Chloe’s hand tightens around hers. “So eager to get away?” she murmurs.

Ignoring the jump in her stomach, Max says, as smoothly as she can, “No, just- eager to get warm.”

“I could get you warm,” Chloe says, and her mouth crooks but Max doesn’t think she’s supposed to laugh like it’s a joke. Her right hand is still cusping Max’s neck, still gloved and cold, but Max can feel the heat pulsing underneath. 

She swallows, and feels Chloe’s hand ride the motion of it. There’s a moment where she thinks of saying something alluring, something as easily wanton as the way Chloe is looking at her and the way she says _warm_.

In the end she can’t think of anything. “Not as fast as hot chocolate will,” she says, and when she starts pulling Chloe towards the house Chloe doesn’t complain, just falls into step behind her.

Max thinks she might mutter, “we’ll see,” under her breath before they come up under the threshold, though.

In recompense, later, when they’re drinking cocoa together on the floor in front of the fireplace and Max has laid her head to rest on Chloe’s shoulder, Chloe’s snow-hot fingers petting gently through her hair, she mutters, “When the snow melts, I’ll take you somewhere.”

Chloe stops scratching at her head for just a minute, then hums, and presses her lips to the crown of Max’s head. “Sure.”

In the picture she takes that day, Chloe is facing away from the lens, turned towards the fireplace with two half-full mugs sitting in front of her, half wrapped in a blanket with the other half draped on the floor, waiting for Max’s return. 

\---

“You do know that picnics are like the gayest thing conceivable,” Chloe says, through a mouthful of ham sandwich. 

Max just rolls her eyes, fishing in the chip bag between them. “You’re the gayest thing conceivable,” she says. “Besides, this from the girl who’s already eaten like three sandwiches.”

Looking affronted, Chloe puts the sandwich down, and that’s when Max knows she’s probably in trouble. She hurries onto her feet, simultaneously wary and wheezing out a giggle, and Chloe follows, slower and languid, just watching Max as she always watches Max. 

“Listen, Caulfield,” Chloe says, and takes a step forward, over the food. Max takes a careful step back. “Of course I ate three sandwiches. My beautiful girlfriend probably spent all day slaving over these sandwiches.”

There’s probably only about five yards between them and the lake. Max is going to need to watch her step. “They were store-bought, actually.”

“My beautiful girlfriend,” Chloe goes on, ignoring her and taking another slow step forward. Max takes another small step back, “who brought me to this absolutely picturesque location, likely with romantic prospects-”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Max breathes, nearly losing her footing over an upright toadstool and having to hop back another three steps. “Maybe I just wanted to take pictures and needed someone to drive me out here. You were entirely disposable.” 

This time Chloe takes two steps forward. “My beautiful, talented photographer girlfriend,” she says, and her solemn face is beginning to crack with a grin, “who, despite numerous attempts to convince me otherwise, is completely in love with me and cannot bear to be parted from me for even a moment, brings me to the side of the lake, with food and her camera and expects me not to-”

That’s when she breaks into the sprint, and Max absolutely isn’t ready, she didn’t think Chloe would come after her mid-sentence. She shrieks and stumbles back only two more steps before Chloe’s caught up with her, grabbing her around the waist and scooping her into the air. “Chloe-!”

But it’s too late, Chloe’s already carrying her back to the picnic blanket, face buried in her neck, and Max is laughing too hard to come up with a convincing protest anyway. She lands on her back against the soft feeling of cloth and bumpy grass underneath, and Chloe is kissing her, and it’s easy to kiss back.

When they break apart to breathe, Max just giggles. “Your breath is all hammy, gross.”

“You’re gross and hammy,” Chloe breathes back, and kisses her nose and her chin and under her throat and increasingly ticklish spots until Max has to drag her back up to the mouth again. 

Maybe an hour later, and the food’s been entirely forgotten, and they’re just laying on their sides facing each other, quiet and content. Chloe’s eyes are closed, hands folded under her head, and Max is tracing one finger across her face, up the slope of her nose, down the ridge of her cheekbones.

She stalls when Chloe says, without opening her eyes, “So are you going to ask me to the prom or what?”

Max pauses for a minute, then when Chloe still doesn’t open her eyes she just keeps tracing, going across the soft skin underneath her eyes. “I mean, I can, but that wasn’t exactly the reason I brought you out here.”

“Figures,” Chloe says. “Max, you’re lucky you’re so cute, your seduction skills are so lacking.”

Bringing her hand away from Chloe’s face to go reaching for her camera, Max says absently, “Thanks. Anyway, if you’re so worried about it, shouldn’t you be asking me?”

“Can’t,” Chloe mutters, and even though she still hasn’t opening her eyes Max can see her irises flickering around behind the eyelids. “It’ll betray my cool punk exterior. You need to ask me, and I’ll roll my eyes and be like ‘ugh, fine, whatever’, while secretly thinking I’m the luckiest girl in the world and about how pretty you’re going to look in your dress.”

Max has found her camera, and carefully sets it at the angle of Chloe’s face before saying, “Chloe Price, would you do me the honor of betraying your cool punk exterior to be my date for the senior prom?”

A slow smile creeps up Chloe’s face, and she gets through “ugh, fi-” before Max snaps the picture and her eyes immediately fly open. “Max!”

“Thanks for sort-of-but-not-really asking me to prom, Chloe,” Max says, shoving the camera and the photo away again. “That was so heartwarming.”

Even if she looks aghast, Chloe still can’t help the bemused grin that spreads across her face. “You’re the worst,” she says disbelievingly, then she’s crossing the picnic blanket again to catch Max’s mouth again, and Max is laughing, smiling against a kiss.

\---

“I still can’t believe you convinced Chloe Price to come to the prom,” Trevor says, hands in his pockets as they’re heading down the steps, out of the hotel and underneath a gorgeously starry sky. “What’s your secret, Caulfield?”

“Fuck off, Trevor,” Chloe says, but it’s easy, her arm’s draped over Max’s bare shoulder and they’re all warm and pliant and happy from dancing and music and food. She’s taken off her jacket and has slung it over her shoulder with the arm that’s not around Max, and there’s a crease in her dress shirt from where Max was leaning against her during the final dance. Max can’t stop looking at it. “As if your own girlfriend didn’t convince you to go.”

Rachel, who’s a few steps behind them, throws back her head and laughs. “Oh, give the girl a little more credit than that, Chloe,” she says. “I’ve been trying to get you to come to homecoming for years, and no dice.”

“You just wanted me there to see you win crowns,” Chloe says, “as if I don’t see enough of that in my life already. 

Kate and Justin have already climbed into the limo, and Trevor just gives Chloe and Max another amused looking before helping Dana into the car. Chloe makes a gesture at Max, but Rachel holds them back, one hand on her hip and still looking amused. “No, really, I have to know. What’s the secret, Max?”

Rachel is in a red backless evening gown, because that’s the way she is, and she came stag, despite the fact that she certainly wasn’t wanting for attention on the dancefloor. Max is always going to feel a little frumpy next to her, but tonight she doesn’t feel so bad about it. Her own dress isn’t as sultry, but it’s nice and fits well and matches the blue of Chloe’s hair and the forget-me-nots pinned to her wrist and Chloe’s lapel. 

Which reminds her. She reaches into her purse, and gestures Chloe and Rachel together with one hand as she draws her camera up with the other. “One sec- guys, smile.”

They both look at her, bemused, then Rachel shakes her head. “No way, Max, Chloe’s your date, if you’re doing your one picture thing then-”

“That’s not how it works, I’m not in them,” Max says. “And Chloe’s my date, but you’re my friend and you helped me pick out my dress and you made this a good night too. In.”

Rachel looks helplessly between them, and Chloe shrugs. “Gotta do what the lady says, Rach.”

Max raises an eyebrow at her over the lens, and Rachel sighs, rests her elbow on Chloe’s shoulder and mutters to her, “You’re so fucking whipped,” then grins an award-winning smile that would put any car salesgirl to shame. The flash snaps, and Max grins, shoving the camera and the photo back into her purse. 

Rachel’s halfway through climbing into the limo, Chloe’s hand in Max’s again, when she turns around in the door, crouching and giving Kate what is probably an exceptionally stellar view of her ass. “Wait, but you didn’t tell me, you sneak. How’d you convince her to come?”

Her head’s resting back against Chloe again, back where it had been during the slow dance, and she can feel Chloe’s heartbeat speeding up without even having to look at her. Max just grins. “I asked,” she says. 

Looking disbelievingly at her, Rachel’s gaze flicks up to Chloe, and whatever finds there is confirmation enough to groan loudly and shuffle all the way back into the car. “Ugh. You two are so disgusting.”

It’s definitely true, and Max doesn’t even try to deny it, but Rachel and Dana both give her dark looks in the limo as Chloe idly braids strands of her hair with Max leaning against her anyhow.

\---

Going to college in the same city is a great idea, and so moving into an apartment together is a great idea, in theory.

“How the fuck do you lose an entire moving van, it’s not like it’s-”

“It’s not like I personally lost it, Chloe, and you don’t need to act like I set this up-”

“Well, I don’t know, just because most of your stuff got shipped through just fine-”

“What does that have to do with anything?!”

So not everything can go right all the time. Max knows that. But Chloe’s sitting on their mostly empty apartment floor, not looking at her, and Max is sitting five feet away from her facing the opposite wall and trying not to cry, and it’s kind of hard not to worry in moments like this that this has all been a mistake. 

God, if things are starting out like this, she can only imagine how long it will last before Chloe realizes that being financially obligated to Max isn’t a good idea, and then she’ll probably figure out being romantically obligated isn’t great either, and then-

She shakes her head, hard, and takes a deep breath. Getting depressed isn’t going to help anything right now. 

But she doesn’t really feel like starting to put stuff away, either, because that will probably just get Chloe angry again. So instead she reaches for her bag, decides to take inventory of what she knows for sure she still has.

There’s not so much she carries around, and most of it’s junk. Amidst gum wrappers, dead pens, and some tampons, the things of value she’s able to retrieve is her phone, her journal, and her camera.

She holds the camera for a good twenty seconds, then looks back at Chloe, who is still fiercely not looking at her, and then looks back at the camera for a solid minute. Then she turns around on her knees to face Chloe fully.

Even though Chloe doesn’t look anything near happy, and the camera is heavy in Max’s hands, and this is probably a bad idea, she holds the viewfinder up to her eyes and takes the picture anyway. Chloe, sitting on the floor, frowning down at the wood framed between her legs, a bookshelf half-empty in the background.

Chloe jumps when the shutter goes off, but when she looks at Max she doesn’t seem mad. She just looks surprised, in a tired sort of way. 

“What’s so good about right now?” she says, and her voice cracks.

Max is looking at the photo, left hand still wrapped around the camera. “I don’t know,” she says, without looking up. “Just that we’re together, I guess.” She puts the camera down, reaches over for the box she keeps all her photos in and puts the new one on top. “That you haven’t left yet.”

There’s a moment of silence, and the cardboard of the show box squelches loudly against itself as Max closes it. Then Chloe says, “Max, come here.”

She looks up, startled, and Chloe’s got one arm already aloft, gesturing Max into her side. She’s looking at her with that first-time look, the soft and wondering one, and that’s what tells Max everything’s going to end up okay.

Slowly, she inches towards Chloe on the floor, and as soon as she’s within reaching distance Chloe grabs her, pulls her into her side as tight as she can, presses a hard kiss to Max’s forehead. Max sighs, draping her legs over Chloe’s and letting her head fall against Chloe’s chest.

“Max,” Chloe says, against her hair, “I’m never leaving you.”

They fall asleep amongst the books and boxes, and manage not to wake up too sore. The lost van comes the next day, with apologies and the rest of their things.

\---

Eventually there’s a paid internship. It’s two years into college, over the summer, under a considerably famous photographer, and Max couldn’t really say no even if she wanted to. And most of her doesn’t want to.

Chloe’s wrapping a scarf around her neck in the airport, even though it’s eighty degrees out, and Max is trying to laugh. “Chloe, it’s July.”

“Massachusetts is fucking cold,” Chloe mutters, without looking up from Max’s collarbone. “Fucking East Coast, why would anyone live there.”

This time Max really does laugh, and that’s what finally gets Chloe to look up from the knot. “Seasons?” she suggests, but then Chloe’s eyes meet her and her voice cracks anyway. “Oh, dammit.” 

And immediately Chloe pulls her into her arms, so tight Max can’t move her neck to look up at her, which is probably by design. She also can’t breathe, which hopefully is not by design.

“I’m gonna fucking miss you,” Chloe mutters into her hair.

Max clutches at the skin of her back, bare even in the airport’s stark air conditioning, presses her hands flat against Chloe’s sharp shoulderblades. “I’m gonna miss you too,” she says. “I’ll message you every day.”

“You better,” Chloe says, muffled.

“Make sure you eat,” Max says, her nose squashed into Chloe’s throat, and she’s talking fast so the lump in her throat doesn’t rise any higher, “and vacuum on the weekends, and don’t forget to pay the water bill, also I left my photo box on the top shelf of the closet so don’t- oh, hang on.”

And she steps back, out of Chloe’s embrace, reaches in her carryon and takes out out her camera. As soon as Chloe sees it, she moans, covering her face with one hand. “No, don’t, I’m gonna look like a fucking orc-”

“It’s the last one for a while,” Max says stubbornly, already raising the viewfinder to her eye, “let me take it.”

Because she asks, Chloe rolls her eyes but lowers her hands, and looks straight at the camera like she’s posing for an identification shot, arms dangling but tight at her sides. She’s hatless and bare-armed in the summer heat, in a tank top and shorts, and Max loves the photo as soon as it comes spitting out even though Chloe is borderline glaring in it because it’s just so _Chloe_. It’s her showing how she feels. There’s something so genuine about it. 

“Good,” Max says satisfactorily, puts the photo and camera back in her bag, and then when she looks up again Chloe’s right back in her face, and she kisses her like one of them’s going off to war.

They’re still kissing when the gate starts calling for passengers to board, and it’s Max that has to break them apart, but she looks back for as long as she can to watch Chloe before she goes. She knows Chloe watches her for even longer, can feel it. 

The entire five hour flight is spent looking at that photo, just Max smiling affectionately down at Chloe scowling back up at her.

\---

Even though Max is a photographer, and has a groomed appreciation for images, she will always admit that Chloe’s face is always best in real life. The Skype call is, as always, so relieving, just to see her and hear her, but it’s lacking the tactile quality. 

“I really do have to go,” she says regretfully, because the call is coming onto fifty minutes and her break is really only supposed to be thirty. “But everything’s going okay at home?”

Chloe rolls her eyes. The lighting in the apartment isn’t that great, but Max knows her body language well enough by now to infer most of what the rest of Chloe must be doing. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Same thing as always. Everything’s good in Massachusetts?”

Max nods quickly, then when Chloe blinks expectantly at her, she smiles, just a little. “It is kind of weirdly cold. In a summer sort of way.”

“Uh huh,” Chloe says, looking pleased with herself, but then the smile slips off her face, like it always does at the end of a call. “I miss you.”

Even though this is the same exchange they’ve had for the last seven weeks, Max’s heart still twists, the same way it does every day. She raises her hand to the screen, even though it’ll probably look dumb on Chloe’s end of the screen, and touches gently at where Chloe looks most lonely. “I miss you too,” she murmurs. “One more week.”

“Mmhm,” Chloe says, nodding, then, brightening up. “I’ll be there to pick you up.”

“I know you will,” Max says fondly. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Chloe nods, some of the light still in her eyes, and blows a kiss at the camera just before Max hits end. 

Max leans back in her chair, enjoys the spring of it, and reaches across the desk to pick up the frame of the picture of Chloe from the airport. She taps her fingers across its glossy sheen once, and very very briefly considers the idea of marriage.

Then she decides it’s probably too early to spring that kind of commitment on Chloe, puts the photo back on her desk, and gets back to work.

\---

The airport is offensively crowded when Max lands back in Seattle, but it’s not like she’s ever had trouble finding Chloe in a crowd.

Their eyes must meet at almost exactly the same time, because they both are hurrying at each other in nearly the same moment, crashing into each other with the same momentum. If Max planned on saying anything profound to Chloe once she got home, it’s immediately forgotten when Chloe grabs her face and crushes their lips together, gasping against Max’s mouth like she’s been drowning all this time.

Max drops the handle of her suitcase, and she vaguely hears her carryon fall off her shoulder and clatter to the floor too, but that hardly seems to matter at all now that Chloe is here and so warm against her and kissing her like she never wants to let Max go anywhere outside kissing distance again. Hands free now, Max reaches up and fists a hand in Chloe’s hair, not sure how to convey that she missed her just as much but about to try her damnedest anyway.

In retrospect, she thinks they might get some wolf whistles, and probably a lot of dark looks from passing suburban moms, but when Chloe finally breaks their kiss with a shaky breath and presses their foreheads together and murmurs, “fuckin’ can’t live without you, Caulfield,” Max really, really can’t bring herself to care. 

\---

Jet lag is a bitch, and Max falls asleep on the couch at an atrocious time in the evening, around seven, and as far as she knows Chloe doesn’t make any effort to wake her up. What she does know is that Chloe must have carried her to the bed, because she wakes up there, on her side facing Chloe, who’s leaning one elbow against her own pillow and just gazing at her.

Max blinks at her twice, slow and lazy, then closes her eyes again, feeling the smile curl up her cheeks. “How long’ve you been watching me sleep?”

“How long is weird?” Chloe counters.

When Max chuckles she can feel her own breath ghost across Chloe’s face and come echoing back across hers. “I don’t know. Do you feel weird?”

“No,” Chloe says boldly, and Max can feel her hand stroke over Max’s hair, come to settle across her cheek. “I like watching you sleep. You’re pretty.”

Maybe it’s dark enough that Chloe still won’t see her flush. Max keeps her own eyes closed, as cover. “Hmm. Maybe I should sleep more often, then.”

She expects Chloe to respond sarcastically, practically sets her up for it, but still Chloe is surprising her, only responds with a light kiss against her mouth. “Sleep as much as you want, baby.”

After that, she does fall asleep again, but she can’t be sure how long Chloe watches her after that. She wakes up to Chloe’s face buried in her collar, arms loose around Max’s waist.

\---

It’s the fifth anniversary of their first date today, and Chloe isn’t big on dates except Max’s birthday so Max doesn’t fully expect her to remember. That’s okay though; it’s not like they’re in a place where they need to be reminded they love each other. There’s never any forgetting it. 

Still, though, when she gets a text she’s surprised.

 **Chloe** : hap anniversary, meet me at the gallery downtown at 7

Max gets out of work at six. Luckily, she’s already dressed sort of nice- she can’t remember what kind of event is going on at the gallery downtown, but it’s got to be something nice. 

The night’s kind of chilly when Max steps out of the cab, and there’s really no one outside the gallery, which sets her nerves on edge. Still, it’s lit on the inside, soft golden, and there’s something so welcoming about the way it glows against the darkness of the street around it.

So she steps in, cautious, and there are photos on the wall and strings of white lights strewn everywhere so she must be in the right place. She looks around for Chloe, but she must not be here yet, so instead she moves forward to inspect the first picture.

It’s only when she’s fully taken it in that she gasps. The label underneath the frame reads _First Time I Talked to You_.

The photo is of Chloe, seventeen and young and raising one eyebrow, on her knees with Max’s schoolbooks under her arm. It’s a photo Max has looked at at least a hundred times. 

She thought Chloe might’ve forgotten it existed.

The next photo she hurries to look at, and it’s tabbed _First Kiss_ , and it’s another picture of Chloe, this time looking at Max bemusedly, crowded against the inner door of her truck, with snow falling gently in the background.

Max knows all these photos. They’re moments.

Photo on the snowday. _When I Knew I Wanted You_.

Photo from the picnic by the lake. _When I Knew I Loved You_.

Photo from prom. _When I Realized I’d Do Anything For You_. 

Photo from moving in together. _When I Realized I Would Never Leave You_.

Photo from the airport. _When I Realized I Wanted You To Never Leave_.

There’s lots of photos, all labeled, all familiar. Max is crying, she knows she already is, and when she comes up in front of the final photo she gasps.

It’s not of Chloe. It’s of Max, in soft brown and gold light, sleeping and gentle. The photo’s not exactly professional quality, but it’s taken with so much care that it makes Max’s heart ache.

The tab says _When I Decided To Ask You To Marry Me_.

If she makes a little noise in the back of her throat she can’t help it, and when she turns around to find Chloe on one knee, looking nervous and holding a ring box, and she sobs, then she can’t help that either.

That’s the very first photo she takes of her and Chloe herself, both of them a little damp from tears and a little red from kissing. In the photo, Chloe is kissing her cheek, and just visible is the glint of gold on Max’s left hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I know the end of this is a lot like my other proposal fic. I can't help that my great idea for a proposal was copied by the Extra Gum Company.


End file.
